Inclusive Collection: K

"What if social transformation and liberation isn't about waiting for someone else to come along and save us? What if ordinary people have the power to collectively free ourselves? In this timely collection of essays and interviews, Mariame Kaba reflects on the deep work of abolition and transformative political struggle."

Fiction. "Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-American sisters growing up in rural Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the despair when one sister becomes terminally ill."

Fiction. "In Palestine’s Children, each story involves a child—a child who is victimized by political events and circumstances, but who nevertheless participates in the struggle toward a better future. As in Kanafani’s other fiction, these stories explore the need to recover the past—the lost homeland—by action. At the same time, written by a major talent, they have a universal appeal."

"'Voluntary evacuation,' a little-known Japanese American experience during World War II with roughly 120,000 people forced from their homes by Executive Order 9066. Around 5,000 escaped. Recounting her family's flight from home and the influence of those experiences."

Fiction. "Iris is about to go on a grand road trip to make sure the loneliest whale in the ocean is finally heard. From fixing the class computer to repairing old radios, twelve-year-old Iris is a tech genius. But she's the only deaf person in her school, so people often treat her like she's not very smart. If you've ever felt like no one was listening to you, then you know how hard that can be. When she learns about Blue 55, a real whale who is unable to speak to other whales, Iris understands how he must feel. Then she has an idea: she should invent a way to "sing" to him! But he's three thousand miles away. How will she play her song for him? Full of heart and poignancy, this affecting story by sign language interpreter Lynne Kelly shows how a little determination can make big waves."

"In this book, Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science, bringing it all together with an engaging personal narrative of his own awakening to antiracism. How to Be an Antiracist is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond an awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a truly just and equitable society."

"Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. Stamped from the Beginning uses the lives of five major American intellectuals to offer a window into the contentious debates between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and antiracists. From Puritan minister Cotton Mather to Thomas Jefferson, from fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to brilliant scholar W.E.B. Du Bois to legendary anti-prison activist Angela Davis, Kendi shows how and why some of our leading proslavery and pro-civil rights thinkers have challenged or helped cement racist ideas in America. As Kendi provocatively illustrates, racist thinking did not arise from ignorance or hatred. Racist ideas were created and popularized in an effort to defend deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and to rationalize the nation's racial inequities in everything from wealth to health."

"A "choral history" of African Americans covering 400 years of history in the voices of 80 writers, edited by the bestselling, National Book Award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain. Last year marked the four hundredth anniversary of the first African presence in the Americas--and also launched the Four Hundred Souls project, spearheaded by Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Antiracism Institute of American University, and Keisha Blain, editor of The North Star. They've gathered together eighty black writers from all disciplines -- historians and artists, journalists and novelists--each of whom has contributed an entry about one five-year period to create a dynamic multivoiced single-volume history of black people in America."

Fiction. "Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence--a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon. As the treatment takes effect, Charlie’s intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?"

"Raised by a single mother in an impoverished neighborhood in Los Angeles, the author experienced firsthand the prejudice and persecution Black Americans endure at the hands of law enforcement. For the author, the most vulnerable people in the country are Black people. The author asserts that Black Americans have been targeted by a criminal justice system that serves a white privilege agenda, and are subjected to unjustifiable racial profiling and police brutality. In 2013, when Trayvon Martin's killer went free, her outrage led her to co-found the Black Lives Matter movement with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi. Condemned as terrorists and as a threat to America, the women founded a hashtag that birthed the movement to demand accountability from the authorities who have turned a blind eye to the injustices inflicted upon people of black and brown skin. Championing human rights in the face of violent racism, the author transformed personal pain into political power, giving voice to a people suffering inequality, and forming a movement fueled by strength and love, to tell the country - and the world - that Black Lives Matter."

Fiction. "Beautiful, high-stepping Yoruba of Harlem is invited to the annual cotillion thrown by African-American high society of Queens. Caught between the indifference of her father, the excitement of her social-climbing mother, and her boyfriend's militancy, Yoruba persuades her sister debutantes to challenge the aging doyennes in one of the most sidesplitting scenes in American literature."

Uses "the concept of mimicry to think through hallyu's adaption of American sensibilities and genres, he shows how the commercialization of Korean popular culture has upended the familiar dynamic of major-to-minor cultural influence, enabling hallyu to become a dominant global cultural phenomenon."

Fiction. "A magical coming-of-age tale relates episodes from the young life of Annie John, aged 10 to 17, as she grows up on the Caribbean island of Antigua."

"The author presents a lyrical and sardonic essay on Antigua, a ten-by-twelve-mile island in the British West Indies and the author's birthplace, offering an insider's view of the lives and ways of her people."

"... brings together a diverse group of scholars who discuss how k-12 Black history is understood in education. The book's chapters focus on the question, what is Black history, and explores that inquiry through various mediums including its foundation, curriculum, pedagogy, policy, and psychology. The book provides researchers, teacher educators, and historians an examination into how much k-12 Black history has come and yet how long it still needed to go."

Fiction. "... takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival, the characters in these stories struggle to make meaning out of chaos."

"There are growing numbers of youth who identify as transgender, and as a result, clinicians and counselors are in need of an informed resource that covers the basics of gender identity and expression. This book responds to that need by setting out clear advice and support on working with transgender and non-binary youth with regard to their identity, mental health, personal and family life and their medical and social transition as well as offering additional resources and reading lists."

Fiction. "From award-winning author R.F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire."

"Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of gender preference. Portraits, family photographs, and candid images grace the pages, augmenting the emotional and physical journey each youth has taken. Each honest discussion and disclosure, whether joyful or heartbreaking, is completely different from the other because of family dynamics, living situations, gender, and the transition these teens make in recognition of their true selves."

"In her most personal book to date, Yayoi Kusama brings us into her private world through poetic recollections, giving insight into her creative process and the essential role language plays in her work and daily life."

" One of the most lyrically gifted, socially conscious rappers of the past twenty years offers a firsthand account of hip-hop as a political force in addition to illuminating his own upbringing and artistic success.
Before Talib Kweli became a world-renowned hip-hop artist, he was a Brooklyn kid who wandered the streets of Greenwich Village with a motley crew of artists, rappers, and DJs who found hip-hop more inspiring than their textbooks. Kweli's was the first generation to grow up with hip-hop as established culture. As childhood friendships turned into collaborations, Kweli gained notoriety as a rapper in his own right, ultimately leaving his record label, and taking control of his own recording career. Here Kweli tells the winding, always compelling story of the people and events that shaped his own life as well as the culture of hip-hop that informs American culture at large."